Last night was the much-anticipated season premiere of “Lost,” and ABC built up excitement with a sweepstakes where 815 fans would receive a USB drive with exclusive video clips from the premiere. Sounds pretty awesome. Reader and Lost fan Nicholas writes that he won the sweepstakes, but his prize never showed up. The marketing firm running the contest and FedEx blame each other, and Nicholas is left without his cool prize.

He writes:

Like a lot of LOSTies, I entered ABC’s LOST The Final Season
Sweepstakes. Much to my surprise I was contacted The Regan Group (marketing firm
running the sweepstakes) notifying me that I was one of the 815
winners and would be receiving a cool little prize via FedEx. Long
story short, the prize didn’t arrive.

I contacted The Regan Group to see what was up. They basically told me
that they had shipped the prize with FedEx (they provided a tracking
number) and told me there was nothing they could do. I tracked the
package and it stated that although they had received information on
the package from the shipper, nothing had been given to FedEx to ship.
I called FedEx and a they basically said there was nothing they could
do, because they’d hadn’t received anything. So I’ve got these two
companies saying there’s nothing they can do for me and now I’m not
getting my cool little prize.

I feel like a kid on Christmas who got nothing but socks. Is there
anything I can do outside of kicking the dirt and mumbling grumpily to
myself?

Have you tried an EECB to Mssrs. Widmore and Paik?

Back here in the real world, we’re not sure there’s anything that can be done. There is no obvious provision in the contest rules for shipping issues. While now the prize is past its usefulness, it’s still the principle.

Are there any other winners out there? What was your experience? Let us know in comments or at tips@consumerist.com